>> Voiceover: Live from Las Vegas, it's theCUBE, covering AWS re:Invent 2017, presented by AWS, Intel, and our ecosystem of partners. (upbeat music) >> Well, welcome back. We are live, here on theCUBE, which, of course, is a flagship broadcast of SiliconANGLE. And we're really a media, and we're very glad to have here with us for the second of our three days of coverage here at re:Invent, AWS, throwing quite a bash, here at The Sands in Las Vegas. Along with Stu Miniman, I'm John Walsh, and we're joined now by Manan Shah, who is the director of product management, at, or a director of product management, I'd say, at Cisco Systems. Are you used to hearing that yet, at Cisco Systems? >> We are getting close to it. >> Primarily at Viptela, acquisitioned just three months ago, so things are going well for ya. >> Things are going great. We are really excited to take the journey forward. It's been less than 90 days since we got acquired. We had a great ride at Viptela, As Steven told me, we were the market leaders with the largest traction in the fortune finders space. And Cisco was a natural fit. And now we are very excited to take this journey forward with Cisco's broader partner ecosystem and the customer base. >> So what's that all about? What brought the two of you together, in your opinion? >> Manan: That's a very interesting question. >> Stu: You mean other than money, right? (laughing) >> Always the big driver. >> Absolutely. >> But when it comes down to doing business, what was it? >> So, if you look at Cisco and how they're transitioning. I'll talk about business and technology together. If you talk about business, Cisco as a company is all moving toward a subscription-based business model. A large portion of Cisco's business today is very CapEx-heavy. And Viptela was all about subscription business model. And so that was very attractive to Cisco. The other piece was, we went head to head against Cisco in a lot of different fortune finder account. And we had a lot of success. So they saw the solution that we brought to the table and they saw the benefits of keeping it simple, yet sophisticated. That was a strand of Viptela solution. And that was very, very enticing to Cisco. The other piece was that this large deployment, a lot of customers are moving toward a cloud-first model. And one of the key value provs of Viptela was everything was cloud first and 90% of our customers, we were hosting their control plan and management plan in the cloud. And so as customers moved toward this cloud journey, they wanted to consume it as a service. And that was very attractive to Cisco, also. So all of these together made it very attractive for Cisco to look at us as not just a competition but something they can build on, build a business. >> John: Complement, right? >> Yeah >> So, the ST-WAN's been a hot space and, you know, been a couple of acquisitions that happened. Cisco had, you know, one or two solutions already before the acquisition, depending on who you talk to. Talked about that fit. Can you walk us through a little bit, kinda, you know, I'm sure you have to go through the portfolio stuff, how you position it, things like that, you think about the customers. But yeah, walk us through the -- >> So, Cisco had I-WAN solution, which was the legacy ST-WAN that Cisco had. Cisco also has Meraki ST-WAN solution. And now with acquisitions, Cisco has Viptela biz ST-WAN. So, the way we looked at it is the way Viptela, the ST-WAN solution was built, is all of the intelligence was in the fabric. And the end nodes were, what we call the edge routers were connecting into the fabric and building the leveraging the intelligence that was there. Now, the end nodes could be residing in a branch, be residing in a data center, or in a cloud location like AWS. And so the way we are approaching is, the intelligence will all remain in the fabric and rather than just having Viptela's routers as the end node, we will leverage the Cisco's broader portfolio as end nodes into that fabric. So, if you look at Viptela's, it was all internet-based products. Now, if you wanted a T1E1 interface, if you wanted a DSL interface, we, Viptela, did not have it. Cisco already has it. So it naturally made sense to leverage all of the breadth of portfolio that Cisco had and build that into the fabric. And that is what we are moving towards. In the next few months we will have a new software which will leverage all of those capabilities and have the full breadth of portfolio connecting to that ST-WAN fabric. >> All right, can you connect the dots with us now, being here at AWS, how's that fit in, you know, networking, of course, critical component for cloud, but yeah. >> Absolutely, and this is the best time. If you look at what AWS did over the last few months, they actually had a third party evaluate a lot of different ST-WAN vendors and they published a paper that talked about in toto ST-WAN. Listed all of the vendors and the capabilities. So they are acknowledging ST-WAN as a big movement going forward, and a big market, and they want to be part of it. We have seen a lot of customers, as they move their workloads into cloud, and into AWS, they want to extend the network fabric, continue to use the same tools that they will be using, and automate the capability of extending the fabric into the cloud. So, segmentation, so security, visibility, automation. Those are some of the key value prop or key data points that customers are asking us, saying, we want a single tool that will do that. And that is what we have done with the automation that we have built. >> I've seen over the last, this is my fifth year at the show. About two years ago, networking seemed to really kinda pick up. If I'm correct, I saw more than one Cisco booth, even. 'Cause I think there was another acquisition -- >> Manan: That's right. >> Cisco have. Can you give us a little bit of an overview of kind of Cisco in the public cloud these days? >> Yeah, so Cisco has always embraced cloud. And Cisco's overall strategy has been, we will enable customers to take their workloads wherever they want to be. So whether it's the traditional data centers, or AWS, or any other cloud, Cisco always has this multi-cloud strategy. And helping customers to build this fabric that would extend not only from branch to data centers, but branch to cloud, branch to data center, data center to cloud, no matter where the applications are, no matter where the users are. It's all about connecting users to the application, wherever they decide. >> So what's affected that, in terms of multi-cloud and my decision about where I'm gonna put whatever workload? I mean, different capabilities, right? I've got different considerations. So what do you think is motivating people now, or what's instigating people to make these decisions about what they're gonna do where? >> So, there's various evaluation criteria on how you adopt a cloud. So a lot of customers start with one cloud, get familiar with it, run some, develop applications, then run some production application. Once they get comfortable with it, then they want to expand to multi-cloud and less reliant on one particular cloud. But essentially leverage the best of what each cloud provider has to offer. And that is what we want to enable all customers to do, connect applications wherever, whichever cloud they decide, and connect users to those applications. >> Yeah. When I think back, I've worked with Cisco for a lot of my career. You know, branch was something that was critically important. How much has changed, moving to cloud? How much is the same, kind of extending from branch to cloud? >> Yeah, that's a great point. If you look at how the branch and the WAN has not evolved for the last 20 years, it was all about MPLS and the connectivity and getting service from the providers. Well, with the applications moving outside of data centers into cloud, historically, you would take all of your branch staffing into your data center, get it serviced by the applications that are in the data center, and only about 5% would go out to the internet. But if the applications are in the cloud, why do I need to take all the traffic from branch to the data center? Why can't I just go from branch to the cloud? Or data center to the cloud? Or campus to cloud? So, the fundamental design principals have changed. And as a result, you have to evolve in terms of how you design the WAN, how you deploy it, and how you evolve the thought process around consumption model. The other aspect that has changed is, because of internet and cellular, and customers want to build a ST-WAN fabric that is transport agnostic. You can leverage MPLS, you can leverage internet, you can leverage cellular. Why do I care about what connected? I tie my applications to a certain SLA. As long as any part that meets that SLA, I'm okay as the solution takes it, as long as it's secure. And that is what customers are looking for. The last piece that customers are looking for is the change in the consumption model. A lot of customers want to consume it as a service. Historically, they would get everything from a MSP or a service provider. Now they are looking at, okay, how do I, instead of having everything in my plan, consume it as a service. And that's where we saw, in the early days of Viptela, 90% of our customers consuming control plan and management plan from our hosted locations. >> Great. Wanna understand, you know, it's been three months since the acquisitions. I'd expect, being part of Cisco, you get access to a lot more customers. What else has changed? What is it like, coming to an event like this, under the Cisco umbrella mean? >> Yeah, so, there are a few other things that have changed. The first and foremost, as you rightfully said, is access to a lot of Cisco customers. Cisco is a great brand. And going against them, I always faced that. And now, being part of Cisco, I am leveraging that. Cisco has a great brand and what customers want is that, the product from Cisco that is solid and that works for years to come. The other aspect that has changed is, with us being part of Cisco, we are not only leveraging the customer and the partner ecosystem, we are integrating with the broader product portfolio that Cisco has. I give you the example of the routing portfolio that we are integrating in. In addition to that, Cisco has a great product portfolio in the security side. So we are leverage, we are integrating in the Cisco security portfolio, as well, to provide this end-to-end customer solution that leverages security, networking and a whole bunch more. >> So, I don't know if it's a friction point, but you did things a certain way. >> Absolutely. >> Right? You were a competitor. >> Yes. >> Cisco does things a certain way. They were a competitor. So, I mean, how do you make that work? Because ultimately, there's gotta be, I just assume, some difference of approach. >> Manen: And I would, I would be very honest -- >> It's inevitable, right? >> Yeah, it's inevitable, and it's there. The way, the pace at which we were delivering, right? We want to continue to deliver at the same pace. We want to continue to renew it at the pace that we were delivering as a startup. And that is one of the promises that Cisco has done. Cisco leadership has been very up front about, tell us what worked as a startup, and we want to incorporate that. And that has been one of the surprising things that, walking in, I was always cautious that, hey, would we be able to execute at the rate we want to execute. And that is one of the leadership promises that we have got is, we are behind you, we fully trust the capabilities that you have. Go run with it. And we are, we see that day in and day out, across the entire leadership team. >> John: It's a great stamp to have, right? >> It is a great stamp to have. And now, when we were as a startup, a lot of customers, when we are trying to close a business, they will say, do I really wanna do business with a startup? And there was always that financial and other conveniences that would come into play. Well, all of those is off table now. Now that we are part of Cisco, we have the Cisco brand that's backing us. And that's been a huge advantage and it has increased our sales byplan significantly. >> Your world's gone to this. >> Exactly. >> Right, right. Well, good for you. >> Manan: Thank you. Congratulations on the acquisition. And look forward to maintaining the surveillance on the progress, here. >> Absolutely, we are very excited. >> John: Thank you, Manan. >> Thank you. Thanks for having me. >> Manan Shah from Cisco Systems. Back with more, Stu and I will be, here from re:Invent. We're at AWS here in Las Vegas, and back in a bit. (upbeat music)